Fund-raising film screening in Chiang Mai for Arakan State IDPs

By Admin 04 Sep 2024

DMG Newsroom
4 September 2024, Sittwe

Artists’ Shelter, a nonprofit organisation helping Myanmar artists in exile, is organising a fund-raising film screening on Friday in Thailand’s Chiang Mai to help internally displaced people (IDPs) in Arakan State.

The Mae Sot-based organisation was founded by Myanmar artists who fled the junta’s arbitrary arrests after the 2021 coup.

Four films will be screened during the screening at Payap University in Chiang Mai on Friday. There will also be discussions and musical performances. Myanmar traditional food and clothes and products of Artists’ Shelter will also be sold.

The films star Daung, Aung Myint Myar, Paing Phyo Thu and other artists and are directed by Na Gyi and others.

All the proceeds from the film screenings will be used to supply shelter, tents, food and crop seeds for IDPs in Arakan State, said Artists’ Shelter.

One displaced woman from Arakan State said: “Those who do what they can to help us while we are facing starvation are our benefactors. I am happy that they are organising a fund-raising event.”

Fighting between Myanmar’s military regime and the Arakkha Army (AA) has been raging in Arakan State since November of last year.

More than 600,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, and are in need of food, shelter, medicines and humanitarian supplies.

IDPs in Arakan State are bearing the brunt of shortages of goods and soaring prices as a result of junta blockades to land and water supply routes.